And I have to admit, I haven't done a lot of research on MythTV. But, as I picture, for my 2 HDTV DircecTV receivers, DVD player, and VCR, I would need a tuner card, now have one ATI HD650, for each source @ $100 each = $400, and for each receiver I would need a display card, now have one ATI HD2400XT @ $100 each = $400. Although this is a 3.1G P4 dual core, sounds like I need to dedicate a similar machine to the MythTV for good performance, say another $300. Getting to be a lot of money, and buying a crosspoint switch sounds more attractive. Getting away from my original post, is building a crosspoint switch outside my ability?? Jake Anderson wrote: > the cpu requirements for the backend are pretty minimal really. > (except for commercial flagging) > its really just copying a file to disk as it comes over the air. > > My dad is running a P4 3ghz with 2Gb of ram (rams so cheap these days > anyway) > and that will record 2 shows and play a 3rd in HD. > playing a HD stream is about 80% cpu use. > > On his I have the commercial flagging jobs set to run from midnight to > 6:00 AM, they pull 100% cpu while they run. > > My backend and frontend machine (both on the one) is a quad core 2.6Ghz > machine with 6gb of ram. > It also hosts virtual machines for mail and web hosting though ;-> > > It handles commercial flagging while its recording on 3 chans and > playing back a hd stream as well. (as well as streaming data to the eee) > > only thing with that level of load is to use multiple disks as storage > directories, it really takes the seek time out of things. > > Carl Denk wrote: > >> Looked briefly at MythTV. At the moment doesn't look that attractive - >> Linux (I would like to move that direction sometime, my PC's dual boot, >> but it's a lower priority, also ATI cards don't work well, and that's >> what I have. Also, sounds like need more than one computer running most >> of the time :( Probably 802.11 would work since we are in a semi rural >> area with 300' between houses. >> >> Thanks for the comments, keep them coming. >> >> John La Rooy wrote: >> >> >>> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 6:03 AM, Carl Denk wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>> As I said, I would much prefer using cat-5 cable for several reasons. 1: >>>> I have 700' roll that's no doing anything. 2: HDMI cable is not >>>> inexpensive. 3: Cat-5 will go through a small hole and can be terminated >>>> easily. I found DIP config. chips which I can easily work with, though >>>> maybe it's time to get with the SOP bit. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> Have you considered mythtv as Jake suggested? You get a powerful PVR >>> with as much disk space and as many tuners as you like. I have even >>> been able to stream live HD over 802.11g but it is not always reliable >>> due to Interference from the medium density housing area. Cat5 and >>> 100Mbit switch is okay unless you are watching more than 3 HDTV >>> programs at the same time >>> >>> >>> > > > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist